California, Wildrose Canyon, 1998, Photo of the Day, Picture, Photography, Wallpapers

Abandoned charcoal kilns sit in Wildrose Canyon in Death Valley National Monument. The 25-feet-tall (7.6-meter-tall) beehive-shaped kilns were built in 1877 by the Modock Consolidated Mining Company to produce charcoal for a nearby silver-lead smelting plant. The furnaces were closed after only about a year when deteriorating ore quality forced the silver mines to shut down.

According to the National Park Service, the kilns, which still smell of smoke, held up to 42 cords of pinyon pine logs and could produce 2,000 bushels of charcoal per week. Due to their short usage time and quality construction, they are considered among the best surviving examples of such kilns in the western United States.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Dual Track in a Dry Place," September/October 1998, National Geographic Traveler magazine)

Photograph by Len Jenshel